‘Going? Where are we going?’

‘Scotland.’

‘What?’ said Mallory, taken aback.

‘The Highlands,’ Torr amended helpfully. ‘The west coast, to be exact. It’s a beautiful area. You’ll like it.’

Mallory doubted it very much. She was a city girl through and through. She liked colour and texture, shops and restaurants, art galleries and cinemas. The pictures she had seen of the Highlands showed a wild, inhospitable place that held absolutely no appeal for her.

She was fairly sure Torr knew that too, and when she looked into the navy blue eyes they held a derisive expression that made her certain that he was amusing himself at her expense.

She forced a smile. ‘I hadn’t realised you were planning a holiday,’ she said.

‘Oh, this isn’t a holiday,’ said Torr. ‘We’re moving. That’s what I came in to tell you.’

The polite smile froze on Mallory’s lips, and she regarded him uncertainly. ‘Moving?’

‘I’ve inherited a property in the Highlands,’ he told her, pulling a photograph out of the inside pocket of his jacket and tossing it down onto the glass-topped table next to Mallory. ‘That’s Kincaillie.’

She picked it up almost gingerly. It showed a crumbling castle squatting on a promontory, almost surrounded by grey, uninviting sea, while in the background a mountain scarred by scree and corries loomed intimidatingly.

Mallory raised her eyes to Torr’s. ‘Is this a joke?’

‘Do I look like I’m joking?’

No, Mallory couldn’t say that he did. There was not so much as a suspicion of a smile in his eyes.

Now she came to think of it, she couldn’t remember ever seeing Torr smile. He must have smiled sometimes, when he had commissioned her to design this house, or when they had met socially, but if he had she couldn’t remember it. Surely he had smiled at their wedding?

But that day was a blank. Only five months ago, but all she remembered about it was the terrible scene on their wedding night.